Built to Last

From a modest beginning cleaning outhouse pits with a shovel, Henry Yeska & Son have grown and adapted to 21st century technologies

Ferdinand Yeska’s family tree reads like the history of modern sanitation, beginning in 1909 when he emigrated from Poland to Nazareth, Pa. Always able to see a niche and fill it, Yeska stood over outhouse pits cleaning one or two a day with a long-handled shovel. The septage, transported in open barrels in a horse-drawn wagon, was spread on his farm outside of town.

Although established in 1917, it wasn’t until 1960 that the pumping business became Henry Yeska & Son Inc. Today, a 2009 Peterbilt with 2,800-gallon aluminum tank and Wittig pump is the latest truck to replace the horse, and the family’s fourth generation is preparing to carry on great-grandfather’s tradition of honesty and quality service.

The family prides itself on being a pioneer in septic tank service, offering innovative solutions and embracing new technologies long before they become the status quo or part of the septic code. Although no longer one of the largest liquid waste transporters in Lehigh Valley, Henry Yeska & Son remains trusted and well known.

AN EDGE AT DISPOSAL

Four companies compete with Henry Yeska & Son in its 50-mile service radius from Nazareth. While name recognition and a reputation for catering to customer needs help to distinguish the company, it has a weapon that vaporizes the competition in this time of skyrocketing fuel costs, licensing fees, and service fees.

When the fast-food industry took off in the mid-1970s, Nazareth required restaurants to collect the grease in traps before it entered the sewer. Father and son saw an excellent opportunity, purchased a 1987 Peterbilt tractor-trailer with 5,500-gallon stainless steel tank and Presvac vacuum pump, and started hauling nonhazardous industrial liquid waste. Then car washes became popular and the city required them to separate the sludge before discharging the water. Yeska and company rode to the rescue, advertising in newspapers and the Yellow Pages for those accounts.

Industrial and residential waste was discharged at the Lehigh Valley Wastewater Pre-treatment Plant in Allentown. As the industrial side of the business developed, Yeska Jr. began wondering if Grandfather didn’t have the answer to disposal fees by returning the septage to the family’s 158-acre farm.

In 1980, the state permitted plans for a waste facility and Yeska’s company began land applying residential wastewater, operating April through December. During winter, septage is hauled to the treatment plant.

As the company’s five Peterbilt pumper trucks with Presvac or Gardner Denver Wittig pumps arrive, drivers add one 55-gallon barrel of lime per 2,000 gallons of septage to the tank, where vacuum mixes it. Yeska Jr., 67, then tests the acidity or alkalinity of the batch, which must stabilize to pH 12 within an hour. He checks the pH again before discharging the load through a separator (catching trash) and into an open 8,000-gallon mixing tank. An aeration pump in the tank agitates the mixture for an hour, then it gravity-flows or is pumped into one of three, connected 21,000-gallon frac storage tanks.

ODOR CONTROL

“The tanks are sealed and outdoors, but have a soil berm around them per Department of Environmental Protection requirements,” says Yeska. “We have a little job trailer with a booklet inside for the pumpers to sign in.” Yeska manages the facility full time and keeps the records.

Tanks take two to three days to fill, and Yeska watches the weather forecasts carefully. “We can empty the tanks faster than we can fill them,” he says. “When rain is predicted, Dennis Newhard hops on our four-wheel drive John Deere farm tractor and applies the stabilized septage using an applicator with tines that tear up the soil. We don’t inject the liquid.” Newhard, who applies all the waste and has been with the company for 20 years, takes over the operation when Yeska goes on vacation.

Lime stabilization eliminates most odors, but Yeska takes no chances. The state requires him to stay 300 feet away from houses bordering the farm, but he doubled the distance and has had no complaints. The price of peace is measurable: He can land-apply on only 83 of the 158 acres. Per season, he’s allowed to apply 65,500 gallons per acre for corn, 67,600 gallons per acre for soybeans, and 25,000 gallons per acre for wheat. The crops are rotated.

The company land-applied 1.3 million gallons of residential septage in 2007. The rest of the 3 million gallons pumped in 2007 included grease trap waste and other commercial loads requiring processing at a treatment plant. More than 7,000 residential customers make up 50 percent of the income, transporting nonhazardous industrial liquid waste is 25 percent, and installing and repairing onsite systems is another 25 percent.

“Land application separates our company from the competition,” says Yeska. “It costs $35 to $50 per 1,000 gallons to discharge at the treatment plant and one-half that to land-apply. We pass those savings to our customers, and they help offset the cost of fuel and licensing fees.”

FAMILY FIRST

A major change occurred in 1977 when Yeska Jr. and niece Lydia Williams, 74, took over the company. Until then, employees worked six, 12-hour days a week. They now work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. “Our employees have lives and we recognize that,” says Williams, who is the company’s secretary-treasurer. “If we have to work a little later, we do, but mostly we work together to ensure free time with our families.”

Few emergencies disrupt their schedule, as most residential customers are on a maintenance schedule, and Williams mails reminder cards when pump-outs are due. She started the policy 10 years ago after purchasing QuickBooks Pro accounting and tracking software. The cards also have a $5 coupon. “The QuickBooks reports give us excellent information on customer history, their needs, outstanding accounts, and enable us to manage our large number of weekly and monthly regulars,” says Williams, who shares office duties with Alice Pflugler, 65.

Pflugler has been with the company for 29 years, but such employee loyalty isn’t unusual. “Shane Snyder joined us in 1973 and Glenn Williams (no relation) in 1976,” says Williams. Both men are pumpers. Backhoe operator Philip Haberle Jr. retired in March after 50 years of service.

The nine field technicians are cross-trained to do onsite installation, industrial hauling, and residential pumping. All are certified, attending courses through the Pennsylvania Septage Management Association and Education Day at the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo.

“PSMA keeps us abreast of new state regulations, but Education Day taught me a lot about equipment and better ways to use it,” says Yeska. “That knowledge helped grow the business because I bought the equipment, enabling our guys to work more efficiently and safely.”

The company’s onsite division installs 30 to 40 systems a year. About 90 percent of onsite systems in the area are pressure dosed, requiring a gravity effluent filter in the septic tank, a pressure filter in the dosing tank, and pumps. “When the alarm goes off, the pump usually fails,” says Yeska. “We have a Ford F-350 utility body stocked with new pumps and all the repair components, enabling us to replace floats and repair electrical wiring between the house and pump.”

Industrial liquid waste customers expanded from restaurants and car washes to laundromats, juvenile healthcare institutions, amusement parks and manufacturers of school and pet supplies, automobiles and sporting goods. The company also services many rural school districts and trailer courts with decentralized treatment plants and grease traps.

NEXT GENERATION

Williams confesses to having too much fun to retire. “I enjoy working because it keeps me active and my mind alert,” she says. “And I can’t quit until I find someone to do my job.” When she does, her son Donald Siegfried will head the onsite division.

Siegfried, 49, worked for the company in his early 20s, then ran his own excavating and installation business for 14 years. He’s qualified to design onsite systems, do estimating, and is a licensed sewage enforcement officer. In 2007, Siegfried returned to the family business.

Yeska’s son, Henry III, has worked for the business since graduating from high school. Now 45, he will manage the pumping division. Residential and commercial pumping and pump repairs keep the company the busiest.

Although housing starts are momentarily flat, Yeska believes the pumping industry has a healthy future. “Since the 1950s, pumpers have thought that city sewers would put them out of business, but the demand for pumping just grows bigger and bigger,” he says. “Onsite systems are enabling previously unsuitable land to be developed. They all have tanks and pumps that need regular maintenance. I know of one decentralized system going in around here, and it’s generating a lot of talk. We could be looking at the future.”



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